“Hey hipster! You are a hipster!”
An examination into the negotiation of cool identities
Thesis presented by Ingrid M. Tolstad in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Anthropology.
Institute of Social Anthropology Department of Social Sciences University of Oslo
University of Oslo, May 2006
Summary
This thesis examines the production and maintenance of cool identities in the underground culture of New York City. Based on fieldwork in the Brooklyn
neighborhood Williamsburg, cool is analyzed as a form of value, which is subject to negotiation and competition among agents within New York underground culture.
The field of underground culture is characterized by the presence of a number of contradicting agendas which are not easy to manage, and the competence of balancing these dilemmas thus becomes an envious one. As a scarce resource, this competence of cool becomes subject to negotiation.
Through a constant recontextualization of signs, agents actively perform mechanisms of distinction in order to maintain cool as something that is not easily accessed. The constant reproduction of scarcity results in cool being a fundamentally ethereal and fluid concept. What is considered to be cool is constantly changing; it is always on the move.
Acknowledgements
I am sincerely thankful
to my supervisor Odd Are Berkaak, who’s guidance, feedback and enthusiasm has been priceless; to professor Steven Feld for being my academic contact in the US; to David Novak for pointing me in the direction of Williamsburg and New York
underground culture; to my Williamsburg flat mate Olivia who invited me in to her home and her world, guided me around the New York underground scene, and
answered all my questions with outstanding patience; to all the people I met in the field who made my time in New York the experience of a lifetime; to Katrine Ree Holmøy for small talk, coffee breaks and inspiration; to fellow students for exchange of
perspectives, proof reading and for making these two years fun and exciting; to Hanne Eggen Røislien for valuable proof reading.
Finally, to Jo for believing in me, for always pushing me further, and for being the coolest person I know.
Contents
Summary
Acknowledgements
i iii
1. Introduction
Research Questions Theoretical Outline Region
Previous research Hip and cool Hipsters
Underground culture
The concept of modern identity Value, distinction and signs Method
An average Williamsburg Saturday Williamsburg…and other places Total identities
The anthropologist about town Data
1
1 1 1 2 3 5 6 11 13 15 15 16 19 20 22
2. Cool about town
Before World War I: Greenwich Village bohemia 1920s-1930s: Harlem Renaissance
World War II: Jazz in Harlem
1950s: The Beat Generation in Greenwich Village 1960s-1970s: SoHo
1970s-1980s: East Village 1980s: Alphabet City
1990s-2000: Lower East Side Today: Williamsburg
Next stop: Bushwick Beyond the Frontier
25
25 26 27 28 30 31 33 34 35 36 37
3. Authentic and different
Authentic
Words of authenticity Examples of use
Different
Words of difference Examples of use
Authentic and different – a contradiction in terms
40
41 42 43 45 46 47 49
4. The outsider as centre
The outsider
The black man as an original outsider Outsider heroes
“You want to be different”
“People like us”
The outsider as insider
Eat one’s cake and have it too
52
52 53 54 55 56 59 60
5. “It depends on who’s looking”
Cool is a verdict
Interaction as transaction “Real people”
The element of risk A lack of recognition
“Always making connections”
The value of networking
The networking anthropologist Hiding in the light
“When things become cool, it starts to ruin things”
61
61 62 64 65 66 68 70 71 73 75
6. Cool capital
Capital and distinction
The cool body and the smell of effort A case of trying too hard
“hey hipster! you are a hipster!”
The anthropologist smells of effort “It’s all about being cool”
Dialectics of cool signs
77
77 80 82 83 85 87 88
7. An entrepreneur of cool
The entrepreneur The tomato man The promo man
91
93 93 95
8. The emergence of the deer
Post-punk revival A stage of confusion The deer
New-folk revival
Folk hits the mainstream
99
101 103 105 106 109
9. Cool as open category
The concept of openness
The predicament of unpredictability A waitress name tag
Cool as a language of myth An ironic meal
“I ♥ sweatshop labor”
The appeal of cool
113
114 116 117 119 120 123 125
10. Conclusive remarks 127
References 131
1. Introduction
Research Questions
This thesis presents an examination of the production and maintenance of cool identities within underground culture in Williamsburg New York City.
The world of cool is characterized by a strong sense of individualism, where
‘setting oneself apart’ and being different is highly evaluated. Cool is to a large extent a matter of appearing as admirable; it’s about having an identity that other people want a part of. This implies that the construction and maintenance of identity is strongly characterized by mechanisms of distinction. These mechanisms of distinction are in this thesis examined by analyzing cool as a form of value which is subject to
competition, producing a gradient of unequal differences. Further, I explore how agents actively manipulate and reproduce the meaning of signs in order to construct and maintain difference this. In light of this, I point to how cool is closely related to the aspects of how the development of trend takes place over time; it becomes a pressing agenda to ‘stay ahead of the pack’.
In resonance with an understanding of modern identity as one of ambivalence, the landscape of cool is seen to be strongly characterized by the presence of various dilemmas, and the thesis examine how the possession of cool identity can be seen in close connection to the ability of balancing these opposing components.
Theoretical outline Region
This thesis is based on fieldwork in New York City, The United States’ most populated city. Previous anthropological research in North American culture is first and foremost
anthropology has a strong tradition in the study of urban life. This is to a large extent due to what is known as the Chicago-school. From World War I and into the 1930s, sociologist at the University of Chicago conducted a number of studies within their own city, which have been recognized as the beginning of modern urban studies (Hannerz 1980: 20). In 1929 a department of anthropology was established at this university (Hannerz 1980: 30).
As ethnicity is a live force in American society, the urban anthropology has to a large extent had the ghetto and its related social problems as its subject of research (Hannerz 1980: 3). This is also visible within the thematics of some of the more well known urban American ethnographies. In “Soulside: Inquiries into Ghetto Culture and Community” (1969), Ulf Hannerz examines the life of one of the late 1960s toughest ghettos in Washington D.C., Elijah Anderson’s “Streetwise: race, class, and change in an urban community” (1990) explores dilemmas present among a poor urban
community’s residents, while Philippe Bourgois’ book “In search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio” (1995) is an examination of life among crack dealers in a New York City neighborhood.
Previous research
Anthropology does not have much of a tradition for studying aspects of contemporary youth culture within the Western modern society, and research on this field has mainly been conducted by scholars within the traditions of sociology and cultural studies.
Apart from sociological accounts like Howard Becker’s “Outsiders” from 1963 and Ned Polsky’s “Beats, Hustlers, and Others” from 1967, few attempts have been made to academically explore the very concept of cool, or its correlating term hip.
We have, however, in later years seen several popular cultural approaches to this subject. In his “Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bepop, and the American Avant-Garde”
from 2001, Lewis MacAdams gives an account of the history of cool, primarily seen in relation to the development of jazz music. In 2004 the music and culture journalist John Leland published “Hip: the history”, giving a thorough account of the
development of hip from the American slave era up until today. Worth mentioning is also “The Hipster Handbook”, a satirical presentation of hipsters in Williamsburg by Robert Lanham, which gained a nomination for the 2004 Margaret Mead Award (Lanham 2003: 2). The concept of cool, however, has remained unexplored within anthropology.
Hip and cool
An examination of the concept of cool calls for introductory explanation of what is, and what has been, meant by this term. In his historic account of hip, John Leland calls cool one of many surrogates for hip (2004: 11), and as such consider them as standing for the same. Both terms are strongly associated with underground culture, and are inextricably linked together. I apply both terms throughout this thesis, although I maintain a main emphasis on cool.
The origin of hip and cool has for both terms been traced back to the import of slaves to North America, and is considered to have origin in African languages. In
“Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang”, Clarence Major traces hip back to the Wolof verb hepi (to see) or hipi (to open one’s eyes) (in Leland 2004: 5). Polsky, on the other hand, from his presence among The Village beats, considers hip to be derived from the phrase “to be on the hip”, which was used to describe people regularly smoking opium (1967:151). He further holds that within the 1960s Beat
culture in New York’s Village, the word had the meaning of “in the know” (Polsky 1967:
151-152). When it comes to the word cool, Clarence Major finds its origin in the Mandingo word for “gone out” (in MacAdams 2001: 14), and traces it back to African slaves suppressing their emotions (MacAdams 2001: 20).
Quoting Garry Goodrow, a New York actor in the 1950s, MacAdams presents cool in the following manner: “(T)o be cool was to be in charge, unfazed by the bullshit of life…The outward signs of cool had everything to do with an appearance of easy competence… To be cool was to be not frantic, not overblown”” (MacAdams 2001:
20). In his essay “The White Negro”, Norman Mailer sees cool as the quality of being equipped and in control (1959: 352) while Peter Stearns holds that “(b)eing a cool character means conveying an air of disengagement, of nonchalance” (1994: 1).
Cool as the ability to see, to be in the know or equipped, in control or in charge, as the previous quotes state, points to it being a certain competence, or the
possession of a certain quality. What one actually does see or know, is in control or in charge of, or what one is equipped with, will vary. As is visible trough its many
changing expressions and stylistic forms, cool is a relational and contingent concept.
Nothing is cool as such; it cannot be related to specific objects or specific stylistic expressions, and can therefore not be considered an essential quality. We might however say that cool is a way of being in a style. Cool as an appearance of easy competence, of being ‘unfazed by the bullshit of life’, not frantic or overblown but disengaged and nonchalant, suggests that the term implies a perceived presence of knowledge and confidence in the presentation of oneself. It thus receives its meaning as cool if it is perceived as such by someone.
The word cool itself is an evasive one, and apart from using the word in a general meaning of something being good, people within underground culture in
general do not talk a lot about cool. If you are able to appear disengaged and
nonchalant, as if you know or see it, talking about cool only implies the absence of this knowledge or confidence. Thus, the main usage of the word is found in discrediting of those who are perceived to want to acquire it. In consequence, cool becomes an underlying and implicit concept.
Hipsters
A related term that appears regularly throughout this thesis is that of hipster. “The Hipster Handbook” defines a hipster as someone who possesses tastes, social
attitudes, and opinions that are deemed cool by the cool (Lanham 2003: 8). It can thus be said to be a person who is strongly associated with cultural fields which are
deemed to be hip or cool (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster). The term was originally associated with jazz aficionados in the 1940s and 1950s, and also used as a
descriptive term for members of the Beat Generation. The use of it did however seem to decline in the 1960s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster). The word resurfaced in the late 1990s, and now describes those who have a preference for and follow the fashions and tastes of ironic retro fashions, independent music and film, as well as other forms of expression that are considered to be outside the cultural mainstream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster).
In his account of the Village beats, Polsky sums up the status of the hipster the summer of 1960 in the following manner:
Until recently “hipster” meant simply one who is hip (…) Among Village beats today, however,
“hipster” usually has a pejorative connotation: one who is a mannered showoff regarding his hipness, who “comes on” too strongly in hiptalk, etc. In their own eyes, beats are hip, but are definitely not hipsters (1967: 151).
Whereas the word hipster was originally a term used to describe those who exhibited hip or cool, it has increasingly become a ridiculing term, and does not describe
someone who is cool, but rather someone who wants to be cool. In an interview with my informant Rick, a rock musician who runs his own firm custom making guitar effect pedals, he defined hipsters in the following manner: “Hipsters are someone who is into being hip. Trying to be cutting edge or following trends, keeping up with what is cutting edge.” This can further be illustrated through the answer Aimee Plumley gives in her blog as to whether there is such a thing as a “wannabe hipster”:
“Where I'm from, there's a road called Tablemesa, which in Spanish means 'table table.' I think of that road when I hear the term 'wannabe hipster' because it's exactly the same thing, it's a mental echo. What I mean is that hipsters are, in and of themselves, wannabes already”
(http://www.hipstersareannoying.com/archive/2002_10_06_archive.html#82858012).
As with Polsky’s beats, the term hipster is today seldom a label of self-identification, and it is said that the first rule of being a hipster is denying that you are one
(http://www.blog.ni9e.com/archives/nyc/). This point is also made by Lanham:
“Hipsters never admit to being Hipsters” (2003: 13)
Underground culture
Within the social sciences several related terms have been applied in the examination of the type of cultural field in which hip and cool predominantly operate. I will here explore some of them as part of the argument as to why I have chosen to use the term underground to describe this cultural field.
One of the most applied and debated terms within in the study of youth, music and style is that of subculture. According to the sociologists Andy Bennett and Keith Kahn-Harris (2004), the concept has since the mid 1970s been a dominant one within sociology and cultural studies (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 1). The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) has been and remains central to the academic research on this subject. Drawing on Gramsci, the CCCS saw
subcultures in post-war Britain as a form of working-class youth resistance towards existing class divisions (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 5).
The applicability of the term subculture has been much debated. Much of the critique against the concept revolves around how a general model was developed based on a particular situation and particular premises, making it difficult to apply to other subcultural phenomena. Explored as a primarily British phenomenon it has for instance been difficult to translate it to other geographical and cultural contexts (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 9).
In relation to my own study, I have found the concept of subculture inadequate for several reasons. First of all, the premise of subcultures as predominantly working class does not coincide with my own fieldwork experience. Rather I found most of the young people I met to have a middle-class background. They were often highly educated, and had made a deliberate choice in moving to New York, consciously seeking out a scene where they could conduct their creative activity and partake in a certain lifestyle.
The CCCS’ concept of subculture further sees it as a form of resistance. I recognize that my informants identify themselves in opposition to a cultural
mainstream, but my impression is that this opposition is a way of distancing oneself from it rather than expressing an active resistance. In the experience of being different
from the mainstream society, people seek towards underground culture as an arena where this difference can be realized in the company of and mutual exchange with other people who share their preferences. Secondly, the meaning of anything as underground or subculture lies in the very opposition to a dominant culture, and thus the possibility of living out an experience of being different relies on the presence of something one can be different from. There cannot be an underground unless there is an ‘overground’.
The theoretical problem of subculture has by sociologist Peter J. Martin been identified as that of seeing subcultures as being clearly defined groups, with members who conduct and organize their activities based on an distinct, and thereby shared, set of values and beliefs (Martin 2004: 30). This criticism holds a lot of the reason as to why I have found it hard to apply the term of subculture. During my fieldwork, I
encountered an explicit variation in terms of preferences, habits, values and beliefs. In addition, I found quite a bit of negotiation and disagreement as to who and what was considered to be a part of this community.
Trying to accommodate the fluidity and complexity of the field of youth and popular culture, theorists have explored a number of alternative concepts (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 11). One of these is Maffesoli’s concept of neo-tribes. He argues that in today’s mass society where social relations are becoming more unstable and fluid, we see the emergence of new forms of social collectivity. Maffesoli defines the neo-tribe as being less rigid than the forms of organization we are familiar with: “(I)t refers more to a certain ambience, a state of mind, and is preferably to be expressed through lifestyles that favour appearance and form” (Maffesoli 1996: 98). The main criticism against Maffesoli lies in a failure to situate his concept empirically (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 13).
Another term that has been applied to the study of youth and popular culture is that of lifestyle. The concept of lifestyle holds a focus on consumer creativity, and on how individuals actively partake in the process of constructing and redefining their own image and identity (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 13). What might be said in
objection to this concept is that it represents a term focusing too much on the person, and thus to a certain extent fails to include the collective aspects of agents’ sense of belonging to a community.
An increasingly theorized term is scene, on which Will Straw has been especially influential. It has been used to describe local spaces or trans-local
phenomena where various practices of cultural production and consumption take place and interact (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 13). It thus encompasses a wide range of cultural practices, and takes differentiation and change into account (Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004: 14). An advantage of this term is that it is also applied by agents themselves. During my fieldwork, I experienced that informants regularly made references to the New York music scene.
In addition to the concepts presented above, there are several other terms that can be applied when speaking of people who define themselves on the side of
mainstream culture. As this field mainly consists of young people in their twenties and early thirties it can be understood to be a youth culture. Being politically aware, mainly in opposition to the existing political leadership, they can be interpreted as a
counterculture. Agents within this field are bohemians in the understanding of it as people who want “to live non-traditional lifestyles”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism), and they can be seen to represent an avant-garde in the sense of pushing “the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm within definitions of art/culture/reality” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde). The
fact that some people within this field embrace astrology, palm reading, yoga and veganism opens for the use of the term alternative culture. Indie is short for independent and “refers to artistic creations outside the commercial mainstream”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie), which is also an identifying aspect of this cultural field. However, none of these elements can alone account for this field.
When I have landed on the use of the term underground culture, there are several aspects that contribute to this decision. Underground culture is a term used to describe various cultural expressions and communities which consider themselves and are perceived as being different from the mainstream society. An important reason for choosing this term has been that this is the term that most of my informants used when speaking about the community they identified with. It is thus to a large extent a
‘native’ term. Secondly, I find the term underground suiting due to how this cultural field to a large extent is organized through unofficial channels and networks. Through mailing lists, blogs and, most importantly, word-to-mouth, information is distributed and exchanged in complex networks which are partly difficult to gain access to. This aspect of my subject of study highly contributes to my definition of it as underground. Finally, what the use of these unofficial networking channels further implies, is the deliberate attempts that are made to maintain a certain degree of exclusivity. Agents within the underground identify themselves as being different from the mainstream society. They further perceive this difference as being threatened by the people who want to be a part of the community, but are not considered to be genuinely different. Thus, efforts are made to make this access difficult; it is kept under ground.
Several of the various terms I have accounted for here will appear in references in the text, and can then be understood as complementary and explanatory in relation to the understanding of New York’s underground culture.
The concept of modern identity
As the remaining part of this thesis examines, cool to a large extent resonates with the aspects and mechanism we find in the modern understanding of identity. As a starting point I will therefore here outline what is meant by modern identity.
The experience of modernity is said to be characterized by transitoriness, innovation and a constant emergence of the new (Kellner 1992: 142). In what the sociologist Anthony Giddens has called the post-traditional social universe (Giddens 2000: 255) the concept of identity has changed both in the way it is experienced by the individual, and in the way it is theoretically handled within the human and social
sciences (du Gay, Evans and Redman (ed) 2000: 1). Zygmunt Bauman has identified the main characteristic of the modern understanding of identity to be the fundamentally contradictory agenda of becoming what one is (Bauman 2001: 144).
In pre-modern or traditional societies, identity was not subject to reflection or discussion. As Kellner points out, it was considered a given entity, and basically the function of pre-social roles (Kellner 1992: 141). Identity signalled what the sociologist Stuart Hall has called a “stable core of the self” (Hall 2000: 17) which remained the same through the course of time and in relation to others. This changes with
modernity; identity has become mobile and multiple, and is the subject of innovation and change (Kellner 1992: 141). In modern society the self has become a reflexive project of creating ourselves through making choices among a diversity of options (Giddens 1991: 3): “We are, not what we are, but what we make of ourselves”
(Giddens 1991: 75).
The theoretical view of identity today is that identities are constructed through difference, and that they are fundamentally unstable through the continuous process of distinguishing themselves from various Others (Redman 2000: 10). This concept of
identity is thus relational, which means that it is only in relation to its negation, what it is not, that identity can be constructed (Hall 2000: 17). In a complex process of mutual recognition, the individual must navigate and choose between the norms, customs, roles and expectations that are present within a social structure of interaction (Kellner 1992: 142). Thus the establishment of identity involves both an element of negation and of recognition in the relation to its Other.
Kellner points out that for the modern self, anxiety becomes something of a permanent condition, as the individual is constantly worried whether one made the right choice, whether one has found one’s real identity (1992: 142). In modernity, the self is aware of identity as a representation, and that it is thus constructed, meaning that the identity is constantly open to change and constantly being reproduced; it is contingent (Kellner 1992: 142). To Bauman the experience of disembededness is the most characteristic of the modern individual: “There is no prospect of a ‘final re-
embededdness’ at the end of the road; being on the road has become the permanent way of life of the (now chronically) disembedded individuals” (Bauman 2001: 146).
Underground culture is characterized by this very experience of
disembededness and of engaging in a permanent quest to fulfil contradicting agendas.
I see the struggle to be cool to have resonance in the modern understanding of identity construction, and thus the question of cool can be seen as a question of identity.
As well as being recognized as a general aspect of modernity, the
understanding of identity described above can in this context also be examined as something distinctly American. Referring to the many migrants who sought new opportunities by moving further and further into the Western American landscape, the concept of the frontier is seen as a “distinguishing feature of American life”
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/TURNER/). The image of the pioneer as one who is
“abandoning settled society for the wilderness, seeking, for generation after
generation, new frontiers” (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/TURNER/) has become something of an archetype of the American hero. With ideals of conquest and
discovery, he becomes a figure who is always on the move to conquer the unknown.
In him we can recognize the fluidity of modern identity. Further, it is not hard to set the pioneer’s “ideal of personal development, free from social and governmental
constraint” (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/TURNER/) in connection with the ideals of agents within the underground community.
.
Value, distinction and signs
This thesis is built around a theoretical framework which is primarily based on semiotics and on perspectives which see social interaction in terms of exchange of value.
To the sociologist Georg Simmel, all social interaction can be seen as forms of exchange, and the object of this exchange is that of maximizing value (2004: 82). Due to its dependence on recognition, or judgment, value is in this frameset seen as a fundamentally relational phenomenon, one which arises in the relationships that exchange is based upon (Simmel 2004: 68, 78). Cool is in this thesis analyzed as a form of value, which is subject to negotiation and competition among agents within New York underground culture. In particular Simmel’s aspect of the significance of recognition is examined. Further, to describe the mechanisms value exchange, Fredrik Barth’s concept of the entrepreneur is applied to show a particular case of successful accumulation of cool.
The concept of seeing all social relationships as based on exchange and judgment of value allows us to see social relations as relationships of power. This
aspect of power is examined further in the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and distinction (1986). Bourdieu’s concept of capital relates to social resources which are considered valuable within a social community. In this thesis I examine how cool as a form of capital depends on scarcity (Bourdieu 1986:
230), and how this capital through this scarcity creates and upholds stratified
differences between people. These stratified differences is what we understand by the term distinction (Bourdieu 1986: 227). Exercising distinction, people negotiate over the acquisition of cool capital, and this negotiation can be seen as a struggle for power.
The struggle over the appropriation of capital can be said to be acted out through the production and reproduction of signs. In Charles S. Peirce’s
understanding, a sign does not become a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign (Peirce 1958-60: 2.172). Just like in Simmel’s concept of value, the meaning of a sign, and its function as a sign, arises in the exchange of and judgment upon it; it is relational.
Peirce sees the sign as consisting of a three-part relation; the sign, or representamen, which in some way stands for something to somebody; the object, that which the sign stands for, and finally, in the interpretation of something as a sign, an equivalent or more developed sign is created in the mind of interpreter, a sign which Peirce calls the interpretant (Peirce 1958-60 2.228). This implies that through the interpretation of a sign, its meaning is manipulated and changed, in what comes to be an ever-continuing process of semiosis (Gottdiener 1995: 11).
In the relational aspect of the value and meaning of signs, lies the foundation for a struggle and negotiation of value and meaning. If value and meaning are not absolutes, then signs can be used as a means to acquire value, or capital, by manipulating and changing their meaning. In his book Mythologies, Roland Barthes describes this process as a language of myth, where signs are given new meanings
through being transferred in to new contexts (Barthes 1993). The possibility of
assigning new meanings to signs can also be analyzed through Umberto Eco’s idea of how the sign can be viewed in light of its openness, that is, as containing the
possibility for multiple interpretations.
Throughout this thesis, I examine how agents within the underground culture in New York actively produce and reproduce signs in their pursuits of creating
distinctions and maximizing value. The value in question can be seen both as an
expression of identity and as a form of power; it is a matter of being perceived as cool.
Method
An average Williamsburg Saturday
It is Saturday morning, and I have strolled the few blocks from my apartment on Lorimer Street over to Bedford Avenue. The street is packed with people fitting well in to the common description of a hipster; vintage clothing, expensive hairdos, tattoos, one-of-a-kind accessories, and with an explicit coolness on display. There is a calm and relaxed feeling in the air. People are parading the street with a laid back and confident walk, wearing sunglasses and a serious look, keeping their head up as they nip to their take away coffees. Occasionally people stop by shops selling vintage or custom local designer’s clothing, walk in to record stores and independent book stores. Or maybe they stop by one of the many people lined up on the street selling vintage books, records, items, or self made clothes and accessories from foldable tables, card board boxes or blankets laid out on the street.
I sit down at Fabiane’s for a cup of coffee, and listen in on conversations taking place by the surrounding tables. Right next to me two girls dressed in black, punk inspired clothes are sipping to their iced moccas in between reliving the accounts from
last night’s loft party. On the table in front of me two boys in jeans and black band t- shirts are deeply concentrated leaning over a bunch of sketches, discussing how they might look as a poster for their next gig. Behind me a girl wearing a purple vintage dress and cowboy boots has invited a friend out to lunch to ask him if he might be able to help her out doing some refurbishing work on the café she is planning to open.
On my way out I pick up some fliers to see what’s going on this evening.
There’s a Japanese rock band playing at Mighty Robot. Should be fun. I stop by the pizza place and wait in line with the rest of the young and hip crowd for a slice to bring back home.
Williamsburg…and other places
Williamsburg is a neighbourhood located in northern Brooklyn, New York City, by the waterfront opposite from Manhattan. The Williamsburg Bridge connects the area to East Village and Lower East Side in Manhattan. The subway line called the L-train further connects Williamsburg to central Manhattan.
It is an ethnically diverse neighbourhood with approximately 200, 000 inhabitants, represented by Hasidic Jews, Hispanics, Italians, Puerto Ricans and Polish people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamsburg%2C_Brooklyn). In recent years, the area has seen a growing number of hipster residents, and is referred to as
“New York’s hippest neighborhood” (Lanham 2003: 77) or “the epicenter of
hipsterdom” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1311640). With a high density of vintage stores, record stores, art galleries and music venues, it is an area characterized by a lot of creative activity. Several of my informants told me that they had heard that the area of Williamsburg has the highest density of artists in the world, and most of them had moved to the area from other parts of the country
consciously seeking to be part of a creative community. The area is known for having a vibrant music scene, with a large amount of venues and an impressive amount of live shows taking place each night. The area has in recent years produced bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, !!!, Animal Collective and Scissor Sisters, all well known outside national borders.
My first three months in Williamsburg I lived with Olivia, a female indie
musician. Olivia became a key person during this period as she put me in touch with several people who turned out to be central during my field work, and she would inform me of and accompany me to a number of concerts, events, bars and
restaurants. I had to move out of the flat share for various practical reasons, and for the last part of my stay I sublet a room in another flat share in Williamsburg. My everyday experience of living in the area coincides with that of John Leland: “The streets of Williamsburg in Brooklyn […] comprise a theme park in the key of hip”
(2004: 5).
Within anthropological thinking in later years, the view of culture as an
autonomous entity has been undermined (Moore 2003: 11). This has also had impact on the notion of the field. The field is no longer thought of as a clearly bounded space, but rather as a loosely connected set of relations, sites, events, experiences and agents (Watson 1999: 44-45). Conducting field work in a big city neighbourhood, several factors contribute to an experience of the field as being fluid and loosely connected rather than a clearly bounded space. I spent most of my time in Williamsburg, but at the same time there was a large part of Williamsburg as a geographical area that I barely had any interaction with, namely the various ethnic communities. My lack of contact with them reflects the fact that the underground community as such interacts little with the ethnic communities, just as the various
ethnic communities seem to interact very little between themselves. As such, the field pinned down as a concrete geographical area is not sufficient.
Further, my field work was not only limited to the geographical area of
Williamsburg. I attended concerts and events, and visited people in other parts of New York City as well. Apart from Williamsburg I would most frequently visit the area of Lower East Side in Manhattan, which is also considered a hip area with lots of bars, venues and shops. The internet was a well known tool among most of my informants, and I spent quite a lot of time on the internet, browsing web sites, checking online events listings and communicating with people through email.
My initial project was to look into a musical praxis called lo-fi, short for low fidelity. It is the term for an idealistic approach to music recording, using low scale technology with the aim to obtain a more ‘truthful’ or authentic sound. During my time in the field I increasingly realized that this praxis was not so easily tracked down, and to a larger extent rendered into a larger context of the underground community. During my fieldwork my focus thus changed from lo-fi to the complex and contradictory field of people negotiating around the concept of cool.
I hung on to the idea of lo-fi for quite some time, and it was not until the last part of my field work, when I had already established a network, that my focus started going elsewhere. From what I saw in connection with the mechanisms of cool, I gather that the fact that I was actually looking for something else, turned out to be a major advantage. One of the very fundamental elements of cool is that it does not want to be found. While it was relatively easy to ask around about lo-fi, I am certain that my
problems with access and possibility to gain information from people within the underground community would definitely have been more complicated if I had declared a ‘quest for cool’. The fact that I was interested in a musical praxis implies
that many of my informants were involved in musical activity, and that a lot of the data I have accumulated derives from musical settings. This might also be a result of the fact that I am myself a musician, and as such found it easier to approach, contact and be accepted in these kinds of contexts.
Total identities
What is considered hip and cool can be said to be expressed as total identities, meaning that they are enacted in most, if not all, aspects of people’s lives. It is thus expressed through clothing, use of language, place of residence, consumption of food and drinks, what places one goes to eat and drink, which other people one spends time with, what one does for a living, what kind of music one listens to, what films one prefer, which books one chooses to read, which web sites one browses; the list goes on and on. In this context, identities must be understood as being mediated; they are not primarily acted out in social interaction, but expressed through people’s use of objects and various channels of mediation. For cool identities to remain cool, they will need to move with the flow of cool, and thus what is consumed, worn and listened to will change through the course of time. These identities can be understood as
contingent ones, and this contingency can first and foremost be tracked down through the mediated.
In order to be able to capture the totality of cool identities and to track how they are expressed differently over time, it will not be sufficient only to observe or
participate in social interaction. One must widen one’s scope and take in something of a totality of the world one is surrounded by. What posters are hanging on the wall?
What shoes are people wearing walking the streets of Williamsburg? How do people choose to present themselves in internet housing ads? How does the waitress speak
with her friends? What kind of music is the DJ playing? What books do people read on the subway? Such an approach does effect the anthropologist’s practical movement within the actual field work.
The anthropologist about town
I was hanging out with some friends at one of the area’s ‘hot spots’; an old pool supply store turned into a bar. They have kept some of the old décor, added some old
fashioned booths and set up a DJ stand where a young boy in tight jeans at the
moment was playing electronic music from the eighties. I walked up to the bar to order a Stella on tap. “I don’t have it, I’m sorry. Only Brooklyn Lager, Guinness and
Hoegaarden on tap, I’m afraid. But I’ve got loads on bottle.” He pointed up on the top of the fridge, where about 20 bottles of different beer brands were lined up. A guy sitting right next to me at the bar turned over to the bartender, laughing “She’s probably getting a Miller’s Lite. Or a Corrs! Ha ha!”. From what I had picked up, drinking light beers is definitely not very cool. I found myself getting nervous. I stared at the beer bottles, and suddenly it became incredibly important to choose the right one. In the back of my head I remembered a DJ I used to work with as a bartender back in my hometown. As just about the only one there he always used to drink a Jamaican brand, and I remembered I thought that was pretty cool. “Uhm, I’ll have a Red Stripe, please” I said. I looked straight ahead as the bartender picked a bottle out of the fridge and opened it. As I grabbed the bottle from the counter, the guy sitting there turned towards me with his eyebrows raised in an approving gesture as he said:
“good choice”.
In my field work I have attempted to be all over the place, to partake in and observe the kind of life the members of this community live, and the account above is
just one of many examples of the kind of situations and settings I have found myself in.
I lived in a flat share with an indie musician, and made close friends with my two fashion photographer neighbors. I regularly had coffee in various coffee shops in the area, sometimes browsing through magazines I had picked up at the independent book store on the corner. I met up with friends for Sunday brunch, and gladly waited 30 minutes to be seated at a table. I would spend entire evenings in my favorite neighborhood bar, and whole days in record stores, listening in on and participating in heated musical discussion, enjoying the occasional in-store gig. I attended concerts with strange bands in unmarked warehouses, and celebrated the 4th of July
barbequing on a Williamsburg roof with a musician informant, his photographer girlfriend and a bunch of their friends. I got lost in the biggest vintage clothing store I have ever seen. I joined local mailing lists and regularly browsed through New York events listings. I collected posters and fliers, and took photos of stickers and writing on walls. I wrote down descriptions of people’s clothing on the subway, and listened in on their conversations. I participated in seminars for indie musicians, learning to deal with the music business. I met with bands and producers, sat in on rehearsals and
recording sessions, and interviewed promoters and web journalists. In general, I was trying to blend in with ‘the natives’
My activities can in a way be interpreted as participant observation, not because I was at all times in face to face social interaction with other people, but through the fact that I spent my everyday life conducting the same kind of activities as that of my objects of study. The sum of all of these people’s agendas, appearances and activities make up a recognizable cultural field that I through my activities in the field was participating in the construction of. This point is for instance made by
Hastrup: “By her presence in the field, the ethnographer becomes actively engaged in the construction of the ethnographic reality” (1995: 16).
The underground community is not overtly excited about people from ‘the
outside’ wanting to get on the inside. In that respect, a project such as this is already in trouble. However, due to the fact that I have myself for many years been a part of and identified myself with Norwegian underground culture, the mechanisms within this cultural field is not totally unfamiliar to me. Thus, in order to gain access and enable acceptance within the Williamsburg scene I used these maneuvering skills to make the project of cool my main methodological approach, with which I experienced a varying degree of success. Then again, that is also how I imagine maneuvering in this
landscape is experienced by people on the Williamsburg scene, and thus incidents of
‘failure’ have also provided useful information.
Data
This thesis is based on a broad fieldwork in which material has been gathered from a wide set of sources. Firstly, a large amount of data is based on observation, both participant and non-participant. This has resulted in a number of written descriptions of such things as the settings and appearances of street life, people’s clothing, the
interior of bars, restaurants and stores, as well the customers present. In addition I have written down conversations I have overheard and situations I have observed or participated in.
Instead of conducting formal interviews, I preferred them to take shape as more informal conversations, where questions would come naturally from the situations, and to a larger extent be characterized by interaction. As I have been interested in creative activities taking place, how people present themselves and how they are presented by
others, I have gathered a number of magazines, fliers, posters and CDs. Regular visits to websites and blogs on the internet have resulted in both a great deal of downloaded images and articles, but also in the recording of the web addresses I have visited regularly. Finally, I have also taken a limited amount of pictures of Williamsburg life.
To ensure the integrity and anonymity of informants, all names of people, stores, bars and venues have been changed. In the cases where internet blogs and articles have been used and the content of the web site might disclose informant’s identities, these web addresses are not referred to in the text.
Williamsburg life
Local art store
Rehearsal room
Hipsters at the diner
Posters at the record store
Hipster bicycle
A tape DJ’s tapes A Bushwick loft
Flyers, flyers, flyers…
Wall decoration
Williamsburg Bridge
2. Cool about town
The concept of cool has always been linked to The United States’ most populated city:
“Cool as we know it was made in New York” (MacAdams 2001: 28). One of the very first outposts of New York bohemia is said to have been a basement beer hall opened by Charlie Pfaff at 635 Broadway in 1855 (Leland 2004: 48): “His joint was a dim, smoke filled cave, as it were, and a gathering place for a bunch of like minded rebels, who here became America’s first bohemians”
(http://www.nycny.com/content/history/pfaffs.htm). Just as cool constantly moves around through modes of expression, visible in changing styles and trends, it has also geographically moved around the city of New York.
Before World War I: Greenwich Village bohemia
In the years before World War I many young migrants settled down in Greenwich Village, which at the time could offer cheap rents and poor living conditions (Leland 2004: 68). The area was characterized by a variety of types of people, from hoboes and anarchists to starving artists and open homosexuals (Leland 2004: 68). Many of the people who moved here came because they felt alienated from the restrictions and conformity in the small-town life they came from, and were eager to embrace the heterogeneity of the big city (Fishbein 1993: 212). On the streets of the Village they could live out a life on the margins in opposition to the habits of society, merging politics, lifestyle and art (Leland 2004: 70). The area was very much a place for creativity, and the inhabitants were inspired by the ideology of freedom they found in the political Left (Fishbein 1993: 212).
Embracing something of a picturesque poverty, the bohemians allowed themselves to avoid adult responsibilities, and explore creativity, spontaneity, celebrating such pleasures as playing children’s games and swimming in the nude (Fishbein 1993: 214). The rebelling residents in the Village at this time were mostly well educated, and had, in comparison to their genuinely poor neighbors, the privilege of choice. The high level of education was visible in the political beliefs among the bohemians, viewing the intellectual as most fit to control and analyze political events, as well as leading the masses (Fishbein 1993: 216). On the one hand they celebrated the diversity of ethnicity in New York at the time, actively seeking out the blacks, criminals and prostitutes as the others of society. Simultaneously they embraced an egalitarian political belief, with a goal of economic improvement for the disadvantaged which might easily come with the cost of acculturation and sameness (Fishbein 1993:
218). The socialist political agenda led to several artists and writers giving up art in order to engage in political activity in Russia, or become active in the American Communist party (Fishbein 1993: 225). The community was eventually scattered and destroyed by the authorities who saw them as a potential threat in light of the
emerging war and the rise of communism in Russia (Leland 2004: 71).
By the 1920s, the area had become a popular place to visit for tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of the bohemians, and the standards of the bohemian style also eventually became the theme of fashion trends all over the country (Fishbein 1993:
225-226).
1920s-1930s: The Harlem Renaissance
At the beginning of the 20th century, black people from the rural south started to move into the larger cities in the north, coming to New York for the culture (Leland 2004: 77).
By the 1910s, Harlem was considered the capital of black America (Leland 2004: 77).
This period saw the emergence of a generation of black writers, who composed a literary and intellectual movement known as The Harlem Renaissance (Watson 1995:
9). Its writers was supported and promoted by several characters within white literary and cultural circles (Watson 1995: 97-98).
The movement embraced jazz poetics, socialist politics and racial integration, pursuing hedonism and enjoying the Harlem nightlife of musical and sexual freedom (Watson 1995: 8-9). Residents of the city partially saw this as a dark invasion, but offering an exotic nightlife with Prohibition booze, jazz music and dancing girls, the area also attracted a lot of curious white people (Leland 2004: 77-78). The curiosity about Harlem was so big that even the international bohemian crowd visited the area (Watson 1995: 104).
During and after World War II: Jazz in Harlem
During World War II, Harlem was the scene of the emergence of bebop. Of special significance is Minton’s, a club operating in the area during this time (Leland 2004:
123). According to MacAdams this was where bebop music was played and the
artistic movement associated with it encountered the world (2001: 46). Musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk were central within this era of jazz, and representatives of a critical perspective on the national aspirations (Leland 2004: 112). Cool became a way in which one could stay below the radar screen of the dominant culture, and receive respect from the people one was surrounded by: “(A)t Minton’s, cool became an allegiance, a code that only those who knew could break into or share” (MacAdams 2001: 46).
In 1957, Capitol Records released an LP with eight tunes from a series of recording sessions with Miles Davis and Gil Evans. It was titled Birth of the Cool, and it became symbolic to the style and attitude of this period (MacAdams 2001: 13). This was the first time the discourse of hip started to be referred to as cool. For MacAdams, the birth of cool is inextricably connected to the ending of World War II. The ones who were in some way considered deviant to society were not drafted, and did not serve in the war, and as such were not part of the victory celebration when the war was over (MacAdams 2001: 23). The atomic bomb had made everyone feel powerless, and the view of history as a development towards perfection became a disillusioned one (MacAdams 2001: 23). In the face of the paranoia and conformity of the Cold War, artists secluded themselves, they went underground in order to explore and express these new perspectives (MacAdams 2001: 23). And so cool was born, “in the shadows among marginal characters” (MacAdams 2001: 23).
1950s: The Beat Generation in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village holds a special place in the history of American bohemianism: “For better than 150 years, the Village has been a magnet for creativity, a locus for men and women at odds with the larger society” (Beard and Berlowitz 1993: 1). This position was confirmed through the emergence of the Beat Generation, in particular represented by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, who were drawn to the Village in their escape from the 1950s middle-class conformity (Beard and Berlowitz 1993: 2). It is in this setting that the term hipster first appears, a social type defined as embracing existentialism, drugs and jazz and representing the very model of bohemian nonconformity (Watson 1998: 121).
The Beat Generation met in this area in the 1940s, and found an atmosphere of tolerance and artistic activity (Miles 1993: 168). It represented a refuge where they could live in the manner they chose without meeting disapproval from their fellow citizens (Miles 1993: 167). Homosexuals could live openly, people pursued their literary and artistic aspirations, and the consumption of alcohol and drugs was encouraged rather than condemned.
Inspired by romantic literature, the Beat Generation created a new vision of their own, which would later be known as “philosophy of the Beat Generation” (Miles 1993: 168). Due to the knowledge of concentration camps and the dropping of A- bombs in Japan, and the experience of the puritan American bourgeois, they turned away from society’s established values, and sought out a new direction in the search for truth, honesty an spirituality (Miles 1993: 169). With a great love for literature and poetry, many of the Beat Generation were themselves writers and poets. Jack
Kerouac’s book “On the Road”, William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” and Allen
Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” have all become modern literary classics. The strong identity of this literature is said to be their ability to transform everyday details, conversations and friends into narratives which seemed to express an uncensored unconsciousness (Watson 1998: 5).
By the end of the 1950s the original Beats had moved elsewhere. William Burroughs left for Tangier, Jack Kerouac spent most of his time in California and Mexico City, while Ginsberg toured Europe after some years in San Francisco (Miles 1993: 176-177). The area had by then become a major tourist attraction: “The Village streets were filled with tourists and weekend beatniks in beards and berets” (Miles 1993: 178). Television documentaries were made, and articles and series about the
beatniks appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, such as The New Yorker, The New York Post, Life and Time (Miles 1993: 178-179).
1960s-1970s: SoHo
The movement of cool around New York has often been related to the processes of gentrification. Gentrification can be said to be “the process whereby a low-rent neighborhood is transformed into a high-rent neighborhood through redevelopment, usually in conjunction with changing demographics and an influx of wealthier
residents” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification). Once areas start to be
considered hip or cool within the more general population, pioneers move into more run-down neighborhoods, both in search of cheaper rent and more authentic
surroundings, but also to escape the increasing number of people seeking specific neighborhoods because of the areas so-called cool-factor.
In her book “Loft Living” (1982), Sharon Zukin describes how young artist no longer able to afford the increasing level of rent in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, moved into industrial lofts in SoHo (Zukin 1982: 83). A loft can be defined as a large open space, often in a factory or warehouse, and usually containing very high ceilings, large windows and concrete floors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loft). The fact that the industry moved out of the old manufacturing centers had made large, impressive lofts available for alternate uses, and thus they became attractive to artists (Zukin 1982:
58). The high ceilings and large windows gave good light and working conditions for artists, while the large spaces made it possible to live there as well.
According to Zukin, the concept of being an artist went through a fundamental transformation during the 1960s: “Previously regarded as rebellious and bizarre, artists became so integrated into the mainstream of American society that they were
practically indistinguishable from other groups in the broadly defined middle class”
(Zukin 1982: 96).This implied that art was no longer considered to stand in opposition to mainstream society, but rather became a part of the middle class’ aesthetic vision (Zukin 1982: 97). Most of the loft spaces were regulated for commercial activity, not living. The inhabitants joined forces in unions and associations, and due to artists becoming an accepted and established part of the middle class, they eventually
managed to establish a precedence saying that artists were entitled to decent working conditions, and a privileged right to habituate the lofts in the area (Zukin 1982: 49-50).
To an increasingly large extent, spaces in the area were used as galleries and show rooms for art, with a growing interest from the established art world. As the artists in this period moved from a role as the bohemian rebel, to becoming an
accepted member of the middle class, the area also saw a similar development. Once the arena for a vivid underground community, the high rents in the area today has driven most artists out of SoHo again and is in addition to trendy bars and designer boutiques it is the home of exclusive art galleries.
1970s-1980s: East Village
The emergence of punk made the East Village the new arena for underground culture in the 1970s. Just like the Beats, the punks were in opposition to the mainstream: “The early punk rock songwriters and musicians thought themselves to be forging new artistic territory within the confines of established society”
(http://www.inch.com/~jessamin/). As the awareness of underground music and art grew, a downtown scene emerged, which was associated with a variation of cultural experimentation (http://www.upress.umn.edu/sles/chapter6/ch6-9.html).
With its high crime rates and financial crisis the 1970s are regarded as a dark period in New York’s history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_York_City_
(1946-1977)), and punk emerged as a reaction to this:
Punk and underground style and music extolled themes of despair and destruction that were emblematic of their mainstream critique and, at the same time, derivative of contemporary social conditions in cities. New york in the 1970s proved inspirational and the East Village in particular provided a compatible environment for a subculture constructed symbolically around images of disheartenment and violence (http://www.upress.umn.edu/sles/chapter6/ch6-9.html).
In the venues and nightclubs of the East Village, bands like The Ramones, Television and The New York Dolls played rock that was technically limited and
shockingly crude, while wearing ripped clothing and spiky hair (Evans 2003: 105, 110).
In these surroundings artists found an environment where they could exhibit experimental work which was not too well suited for the established corporate art world (http://www.upress.umn.edu/sles/chapter7/ch7-3.html). Artists and their friends set up exhibition spaces in their apartments, and artists like Basquiat were regular visitors to the East Village clubs and social spaces
(http://www.upress.umn.edu/sles/chapter7/ch7-3.html). As a commercial art scene East Village was however short lived, and by 1984 the art scene in the area was becoming an integrated part of the New York art world
(http://www.upress.umn.edu/sles/chapter7/ch7-3.html). As with many of the other hip New York neighborhoods, raising rents forced the creative people out of the area, and brought reel estate agents and young professionals in. The underground atmosphere is still recognizable today, but since the 1990s, as the Rough Guide to New York
writes: “(T)he East Village is no longer the hotbed of dissidence and creativity it once was” (Dunford 2004: 98).
1980s: Alphabet City
As East Village experienced an increasing gentrification, the alternative hip and cool culture moved east towards Alphabet City. The area draws its name from the Avenues A, B, C and D, which are the only ones in Manhattan to have single letter names. In the early 80s the area was considered a slum, and had several sayings such as the one below connected to it:
Avenue A, you’re all right.
Avenue B, you’re brave.
Avenue C, you’re crazy.
Avenue D, you’re dead.
(http://www.thedelimagazine.com/content/features/alphabetcity/index.htm). The saying reflects on how the further east you moved, the more dangerous it was considered.
During the 1980s, struggling artists and musicians started to move into the area, joining the existing Puerto Rican and African American families living there. The area had high levels of violent crime and illegal drug activity, but still attracted a growing bohemian population due to low rents and creative atmosphere
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_City). The increasing presence of artists and musicians contributed to the gentrification process in the area. Crime decreased at great rate during the 1980s, and by the 1990s Alphabet city had entered into a distinctly less bohemian era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_City). Today, rent on housing has seen a sharp rise, apartments have been renovated, and the area is home to design shops and hip bars
(http://www.thedelimagazine.com/content/features/alphabetcity/index.htm). The area
is residentially no longer dominated by either Puerto Rican families or artists, but rather young professionals who can afford the real estate prices.
1990s-2000: Lower East Side
The Lower East Side is one of the oldest neighborhoods in New York, and was where waves of immigrants settled in the earlier years of the city’s history. It was long known as a lower-class neighborhood and even described as an outright slum
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_East_Side). According to the Rough Guide the area experienced tremendous development in the 1990s, as gourmet restaurants, retro clubs, hip bars and design boutiques started to appear (Dunford 2004: 93).
These kinds of establishments still characterize the Lower East Side, and the area is still known for being the home of some of the best live music venues in New York (http:newyork.citysearch.com/roundup/39720/newyork/lower_east_side_nightlife.
html).
My impression is that even if people go to this area for drinks, to see concerts, and also for shopping, not many people operating within underground culture can actually afford to live there. The few people I met who had apartments on the Lower East Side could only afford it due their building being subject to rent control. Just as local Latin and Jewish shops once had to give way to concert venues and chic bars, the Luna Lounge, which was where I had my very first beer in New York during my fieldwork, is now being demolished for luxury condos. (http://travel2.nytimes.com/top/
features/travel/destinations/unitedstates/newyork/newyorkcity/sight_details.html?vid=1 124996104163).
According to Rough Guide, the neighborhood reached its peak of hipness around 2000, as people within the underground started to move to Brooklyn (Dunford
2004: 93).This is a statement which resonates well with a real estate agent advertising for the area: “(T)his neighborhood is truly for everyone”
(http://www.halstead.com/neighborhoodinfo.aspx?n=22). If it is for everyone, it is clearly not where the cool crowd wants to be.
Today: Williamsburg
Only one subway stop from Manhattan, just on the other side of the East River, Williamsburg could offer convenient transportation as well as cheap rents
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamsburg%2C_Brooklyn), and artists and other urban pioneers started moving across the river from East Village already in the 1980s (http://www.nylikeanative.com/generic14.html).
In the 1990s the artist population was growing, with visitors coming from all over the world to see the new cutting edge art scene, and with the numerous music venues establishing, Williamsburg has in the recent years challenged Manhattans position as the main arena for live music and new bands
(http://www.nylikeanative.com/generic14.html). In a 2002 feature article in The New York Metro, a Williamsburg resident expressed his relationship to the area:
“Williamsburg is the only place to find people who are still interested in living a
bohemian lifestyle” (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/music/features/music2002/
n_7734/).
Although my experience of Williamsburg was very much that the area was characterized by an overwhelming presence of coolness, I also at a regular basis came across discussions about whether the Williamsburg scene was over. Already in 2002, journalist Derek de Koff wrote: “The fact that this article is being written will no
doubt symbolize to some that the scene in Williamsburg came to an end a long time ago” (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/music/features/music2002/n_7734/).
Next stop: Bushwick?
Both during my stay in Williamsburg and after my return to Norway, I have regularly read housing ads on Craigslist, a website offering free classifieds advertising, also called “eBay for Hipsters” (Lanham 2003: 77). It has offered an interesting view into how people choose to present themselves, but also as to which neighborhoods are considered desirable to live in. To an increasing extent I have seen ads where artists, musicians and designers are offering housing to what is called ‘creative types’ in the area of Bushwick, a yet rather un-gentrified area east of Williamsburg. Several of the ads expressed resentment about how Williamsburg had been overcrowded with hipsters, and seeking to make Bushwick attractive due to the lack of hipster residents, cheap rents and authentic surroundings. This would for instance be presented in the following manner:
If you're afraid of broken glass on broken sidewalks, bad graffiti, hookers/junkies, &/or burned out cars in a racially diverse, ugly light-industrial area, then this probably isn't for you - the suburbs it's not. (http://newyork.craigslist.org/)
Several of my informants lived in Bushwick, and then mainly in loft apartments.
The area has a higher crime rate than many others, and I did not feel entirely safe on my few visits there. People who lived there all had stories about being mugged, or threatened by kids on drugs. Rick never bothered to lock his old van in this area, because, as he said: “This is not a place where people steal cars. They steel cars
